


I'm Here to Relieve You

by Shearmouth



Series: (Beats back Writer's Block with a Stick) Whumptober 2020! [4]
Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: Blood, Broken Bones, Emergency situations sometimes call for spooning, Gen, The Author Needs to Go to Bed, Whumptober 2020, collapsed building
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-05
Updated: 2020-10-05
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:02:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26829319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shearmouth/pseuds/Shearmouth
Summary: For Whumptober Day 4: Collapsed BuildingEarthquakes suck. So does being pinned beneath a building.
Relationships: Evan "Buck" Buckley & Eddie Diaz (9-1-1 TV)
Series: (Beats back Writer's Block with a Stick) Whumptober 2020! [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1947829
Comments: 9
Kudos: 93
Collections: Whumptober 2020





	I'm Here to Relieve You

**Author's Note:**

> I didn't edit this. I wrote it in an hour and now I need to go to sleep bc I get up before dawn to work and I am McTired so pls feel free to roast me for the typos I'm sure are in here somewhere :D

It shouldn’t have happened. But it did.

They were on the way out, damn it. The building had been cleared, the last tenant accounted for, and Eddie had been _right behind him._

Then Buck felt it: the now familiar feeling of tectonic chaos beneath him, like a beast had come alive underground, intent on breaching the surface and ruining it.

Because of course, an earthquake had to happen in the middle of their response to a burning apartment building.

There was a roar and a shout and the hiss of fire, and then–

And then Buck woke up with half a building on his arm.

Buck groaned and blinked grit from his eyes. Consciousness was coming back slowly, but he was lucid enough to register the fact that his right arm was on fucking fire. It felt like it had been used for sledgehammer practice. The rest of his body throbbed viciously, especially his ribs, but it didn’t feel like anything else was broken. But he still couldn’t hear right, and his eyes stung with smoke and dust.

“Fuck me.” Buck tapped his head against the floor, trying to usher in more awareness. The area around him was coming into focus, illuminated by his somehow intact helmet light.

Buck shifted, looked around. It looked like he was in a pocket about sixty feet by eighty, filled with rubble and ash. He couldn’t sit up enough to see all the way in front of him. As he turned his head to the right, his light caught on something fluorescent. He took it in foggily. Everything down here was gray or black or brown, the colors of a broken building. What was–

The brain fog cleared instantly as he took in the name in chartreuse lettering between the fluorescent strips. _Diaz._

Eddie had been with him.

Fear frostbit Buck’s innards. The strips on the turnout coat weren’t moving.

_Oh, God, no._

“Eddie!”

Silence.

“Eddie!” Buck hacked out a wheezing cough, sitting desperately upright and hissing as the motion pulled on his pinned arm. The rubble groaned dangerously.

Eddie still hadn’t moved. All Buck could see from here was the back of his turnout coat and the bottom of his left leg. The rest was covered in a slide of rubble.

Eddie’s head was buried. Even with their equipment, he wouldn’t be able to breathe if his O2 mask wasn’t on.

He was going to suffocate.

Terror ripped through Buck. _No, no, no–_

He yanked on his pinned arm and yelled in pain. Fuck, _fuck_ it hurt, and the stone hadn’t budged. He lay back down, panting. _C’mon, Buckley, think._

Buck reached over with is left hand and started mapping out the rubble covering his arm. It felt like there were a few smaller pieces pinning him from shoulder to elbow. He found a couple of narrow openings where the stones didn’t fit completely flush with one another. He shifted his shoulder, swallowing a yelp, and felt some of the pieces move a tiny bit.

He tried to flex his hand and elbow. Nothing. In fact his wrist and hand were starting to go tingly and numb.

Buck groped at the floor next to him, and whimpered in relief when he found that his Halligan bar was somehow still in its holster. He yanked it out, shoved the end of the handle into one of the gaps in the rubble, and pushed up hard.

The stones shifted with a grinding rumble. Buck pushed harder, gasping as pain shot through his chest.

All at once, the pieces covering his upper arm fell away. Buck shouted in victory and relief. Riding the high, he hauled himself closer to sitting, took a deep breath, and ripped his hand free.

The world went white.

When Buck could see again, he realized he was sideways on the floor. And he was looking at Eddie. Adrenaline hit him like a charging bull. He surged up and staggered to his best friend’s side and began tearing at the rubble with his working hand. His other arm hung uselessly at his side, pulsing in time with his heartbeat, a metronome of agony.

Buck cleared the rubble from upper body first. He pulled smaller chunks off by hand and levered the bigger ones off with his Halligan bar. Gradually Eddie’s shoulders came into view, followed by the back of his head.

As soon as it was clear enough, Buck grabbed the back of Eddie’s coat and hauled on it with all his strength.

With the growling crunch of stone– and maybe bone, Buck didn’t want to think about it– the rubble gave way.

Buck fell back with a hoarse grunt, Eddie landing halfway on top of him, unmoving.

Buck coughed. “Eddie,” he gasped. “C’mon, man. Wake up.”

Eddie didn’t twitch. Buck caught his breath, then heaved upward and shoved Eddie off his torso. He landed on his side with a heavy rustle that made Buck’s throat constrict. He struggled to his knees and turned Eddie over.

Eddie’s helmet was gone. Blood caked in the heavy ash that had stuck to the sweat on his face. His eyes were shut. Buck couldn’t tell if he was breathing. He whipped his hand up to Eddie’s neck and found his carotid.

A fast but strong beat hummed under his fingers.

Relief swept through Buck. He let out a choked laugh and patted the side of Eddie’s face gently.

“You stubborn fucker,” Buck whispered. “Thank God.”

With that, it seemed like someone reached down and snipped all of Buck’s strings. His legs turned to jelly and he barely managed to catch himself on his working arm before he slammed into the floor and gave himself another head injury. He shuffled closer to Eddie and pressed into his back, draping his injured arm over Eddie’s ribs. He needed to elevate it, yeah, but he also wanted to feel the motion of Eddie’s breathing. He had a feeling the sight of his partner submerged in rubble, motionless and silent, would be joining the ranks of his nightmares now.

Darkness was creeping into the edges of Buck’s vision. Fuck, he needed to stay awake. First off, he probably had a head injury despite his helmet, but he was more worried about Eddie. He couldn’t even check him over properly. What if he was bleeding internally? What if, when Buck woke back up, the body he was curled around had turned cold?

But he knew this feeling– the cold pull of shock. He wouldn’t be able to outrun unconsciousness much longer.

The rubble rumbled. Then shifted. Buck blinked. He strained his ears.

There was the sound of something hammering, and running footsteps, and then someone was calling his name through the stone.

“Hen,” Buck rasped. “HEN!”

“ _Buck? Oh, thank God, are you okay?”_ Even muffled through the rubble, the relief in Hen’s voice was palpable.

“Hen,” Buck called, voice fading, “we’re here. Come– come help Eddie.”

“ _We’re just outside, Buck, hang on!”_

But Buck was out of gas. With Eddie freed and help incoming, he finally yielded to the pull of unconsciousness, relieved at last.


End file.
